It's Sunday morning. It's early. I'm currently sitting on the roof of one of the Riads where I'm staying whilst my family are visiting. It's quiet at the moment aside from the prayer calls from the mosques, as we're in the Medina area. Perfect writing time!
Last night I performed at the show venue, Lotus Club, as usual. The only difference being that we spent the daytime yesterday doing a photo shoot of the show, which implicated performing each set several times for action shots, and so by the time of doing the real show, it felt rather strange! It really highlighted to me the importance of an audience presence, as it was an entirely different feeling performing to an almost empty room, compared with a booked out venue. The atmosphere of a full audience can be electric, and can also prove to be the make or break of any particular show.
The idea of this concept has provoked quite a lot of thought for me, regarding how dance performance, particularly my own, can alter dependant on the setting. I have often felt that I dance for more to the best of my abilities when I am alone in a studio. Although I absolutely love to perform on a live stage, or in front of a camera (hence my current career path) I feel more true to myself when I am alone with music.
A musician friend from our show said to me recently that he feels sometimes as if he is paid to be a performer, but that when he is alone, he is truly is himself as a musician and an artist. I feel I agree with him on some level. That is not to say that I am not being truthful on the stage, or that I am not being creative. I apply a huge amount of myself to my work, and make every effort when on a stage to connect my emotional and intellectual self to the shapes and moves I have been choreographed to perform. However, I never lose that sense of self consciousness, of my awareness of staging, of time limitations, of costume glitches - all the considerations that come with stepping on to a stage.
Ultimately, I am paid to be there, to entertain a paying crowd for a company. But does this make the experience any less of an artistic one? At what point does private creativity and inspiration become lost in the hustle and bustle of a professional show? Would it be deemed as more artistic if it were an unpaid show piece, or if the audience hadn't paid to see it?
I chose dance as my specific art form, after many years of experimentation. I played with photography, I toyed with ceramics, I sketched, I drew, I painted, I made a mess with pastels.......until I found dance. After intensive training, I am now a paid, employed dancer in a professional show in Marrakech. I have been trained in many techniques, and have the discipline of a dancer as a result. But am I still an artist?
I am happiest in life when I am learning, and when I am creating. The two often marry up in my life. For the benefit of my overall wellbeing, I am acutely aware that I must endeavour to balance and include these elements as much as possible for the benefit of my artistic development, in preparation for the creative challenges that Liberty's will present to me.
Always dancing.
H.
X
Last night I performed at the show venue, Lotus Club, as usual. The only difference being that we spent the daytime yesterday doing a photo shoot of the show, which implicated performing each set several times for action shots, and so by the time of doing the real show, it felt rather strange! It really highlighted to me the importance of an audience presence, as it was an entirely different feeling performing to an almost empty room, compared with a booked out venue. The atmosphere of a full audience can be electric, and can also prove to be the make or break of any particular show.
The idea of this concept has provoked quite a lot of thought for me, regarding how dance performance, particularly my own, can alter dependant on the setting. I have often felt that I dance for more to the best of my abilities when I am alone in a studio. Although I absolutely love to perform on a live stage, or in front of a camera (hence my current career path) I feel more true to myself when I am alone with music.
A musician friend from our show said to me recently that he feels sometimes as if he is paid to be a performer, but that when he is alone, he is truly is himself as a musician and an artist. I feel I agree with him on some level. That is not to say that I am not being truthful on the stage, or that I am not being creative. I apply a huge amount of myself to my work, and make every effort when on a stage to connect my emotional and intellectual self to the shapes and moves I have been choreographed to perform. However, I never lose that sense of self consciousness, of my awareness of staging, of time limitations, of costume glitches - all the considerations that come with stepping on to a stage.
Ultimately, I am paid to be there, to entertain a paying crowd for a company. But does this make the experience any less of an artistic one? At what point does private creativity and inspiration become lost in the hustle and bustle of a professional show? Would it be deemed as more artistic if it were an unpaid show piece, or if the audience hadn't paid to see it?
I chose dance as my specific art form, after many years of experimentation. I played with photography, I toyed with ceramics, I sketched, I drew, I painted, I made a mess with pastels.......until I found dance. After intensive training, I am now a paid, employed dancer in a professional show in Marrakech. I have been trained in many techniques, and have the discipline of a dancer as a result. But am I still an artist?
I am happiest in life when I am learning, and when I am creating. The two often marry up in my life. For the benefit of my overall wellbeing, I am acutely aware that I must endeavour to balance and include these elements as much as possible for the benefit of my artistic development, in preparation for the creative challenges that Liberty's will present to me.
Always dancing.
H.
X